A few days ago I switched from my HTC Nexus One to the Samsung Nexus S. I also switched from AT&T to T-mobile. So far this is probably one of the top ten BEST decisions of my life. So looking at the price of the Plan change I have gone from paying $88 a month after taxes with a contract (paid 80 dollars to get out of it) to NOW my plan is 59.99 (plus taxes) a month with NO CONTRACT. Oh and there is no difference in plans other than the lack of rollover minutes, which I never used.
In order to get that low low price and no contract I had to purchase the phone for the full price of 529.99 plus tax. I don’t mind this because I can just sell the phone if I really need to change plans and make back the money. So whatever on to the important part! The phones!
VS 
Hardware
So obviously the Nexus S is FAST much faster than the Nexus One. Things are smoother than ever and sometimes things happen before my brain registers touching the screen. Yes, it’s THAT fast (or demonstrates the sluggishness of my brain). So yeah, that’s that. There are three hardware advantages, in my mind, that the Nexus One has over the Nexus S. Here are the three reasons:
- The Nexus One’s camera can zoom.
- The Nexus One has a trackball
- Micro SD Slot
The one thing that bothers me about all these Nexus S and Nexus One comparisons is the GLARING omission of the biggest advantages of the Nexus S over the Nexus One. The Touch Screen. As EVERYONE knows the Nexus One’s suffered from a ridiculously horrible touch screen that was built into the hardware. I did a warranty exchange and got the same crappy touch screen performance. Thankfully the Nexus S, at least mine, does not suffer from this defect. So yes it is wonderful. WONDERFUL I TELL YOU!!
But anyways, I digress, these 3 hardware advantages are completely unimportant to me. I was fine with a 4 gig SD card on my Nexus One. The Nexus S has SIXTEEN gigs of storage. Who cares if I can get 32 gigs on my Nexus One if I already have trouble using up 4 gigs.
As far as the camera is concerned I have a Canon Rebel XS that I use to take pictures so I don’t really care about that. For some of you vacationers that use your phone as a camera, (You know who you are! I’ve seen you while I was out there being a tourist!) you probably will see this as being a bit more important.
The lack of a trackball does disturb me a bit but I’m over it already. instead of using the trackball to move between letters there is an arrow that shows up and allows you to move the cursor very precisely. There is no equivalent to using the trackball as the camera button (this is a Nexus One feature). the lack of this capability does make me a bit sad. but as I said earlier, Canon Rebel XS (cheapo DSLR camera).
Just the fully functional touch screen makes me happy and on top of that I get a speed boost, NFC, front facing camera, nicer screen, cooler looking styling, etc., etc., etc.. Oh one more thing about the SAMOLED LCD. It seems as though there is a sort of blue sheen when bright light reflects on it, this does not bother me but I could see how it would annoy some people. But as promised the screen does perform better in direct light than the AMOLED on my N1.
Build Quality
There has been a lot of talk about the Nexus S feeling plastic-y and because of that the build quality is lower because it feels cheap. Well I submit to you that the idea of weight as a measure of value is, in most situations, a faulty method of valuation. This method of estimating value for electronics probably has something to do with the weight of the heat sinks in older electronics (just guessing). Anyways the phone is lighter! who cares! it’s made of plastic who cares!
Also, the Nexus one, being metal, has a sort of rubber coating over the metal body of the phone to stop the phone from sliding around I guess. But that coating, on my N1, has started to peel off. This is very, very annoying and ugly. The Nexus S may slide around a bit more but at least the phone won’t start molting like a dry lizard.
But really the only thing that matters to me, as far as build quality is concerned, is the fact that everything on the phone works as it is supposed to (AHEM touch screen). So yeah, that’s what I think about that.
Software
Both have Gingerbread (Android 2.3) so who cares on this one. The software runs noticeably faster and smoother on the Nexus S, but as mentioned earlier that, I think, is a symptom of the fasterhardware in the Nexus S.
Conclusions
You may think this is a crappy comparison between the Nexus S and the Nexus One and you would be 100% correct. But first of all there are many comparisons between the two phones that are very good, with the exception of the touch screen issue being omitted (here’s one with a table and everything!). And second and most importantly, I do not ever try to write quality blog entries! If there happen to be some quality entries on this site then they were the product of happy accidents. I just write whatever stupidity that enters my idle mind! And what is on my mind? The fact that the Nexus S is WAY better, in my opinion, than the Nexus One. Bam! Done!
Peace out!!
Edit 4/2/2011
Since originally posting this I have found the Achilles heal of the Nexus S. It’s the GPS. It works well enough for when I use Runkeeper on my long runs but it is absolutely abysmal for when I use the navigation feature. The Nexus One had a solid GPS, the navigation was PERFECT. But I guess there is always something.
Tags: Android, Gingerbread, Google, HTC, Nexus One, Nexus S, Samsung
I like this comparision.
Especially the fact that it putsh the touch sensitivity problem/improvement on the top of the list.
The only reason I’m looking to replace my N1 is the crappy touch screen. (need to switch off/on the screen a couple of times a day in the middle of typing.. ..or at least trying to type..)
..and I won’t go with anything else than a Nexus device. Glad to read that the Nexus S solves my only real problem with the N1. I’ll pick one soon..
The Nexus S is by no means perfect. But it is a better alternative than the Nexus One. while my main pet peeve is the GPS as I mentioned, another minor annoyance that I noticed is the lack of a method of notification. If you miss the noise that the phone makes you will NEVER know that someone texted or called you because there is not visual notification on the phone. So in short I miss the N1’s trackball/notification light. But I guess that is a pretty minor issue.